Mandriva Boot on USB External Hard Disk
 

hi all,
anyone can help me how I can Install Mandriva Linux 2008 on my USB external Hard disk on my pc ?
I have Windows XP installed on Internal Hard disk and I want to have Mandriva linux on External USB Drive and using Bios USB Boot to boot linux for ducational use ,

As long as the BIOS sees the external hard drive it's a piece of cake. Just stick the install disk in the CD/DVD drive, make sure the PC boots from there first and then follow the instructions. I installed it that way on my work laptop and it was just fine.

I'm not sure whether this is a laptop or desktop you're putting it on. If you're super paranoid about overwriting data on your existing hardrive, it's easy enough to pull the cable out of a SATA or IDE drive on a desktop while you do the install. I can't remember exactly what options I was given when installing it on my work laptop, but I managed to not overwrite all my data - which IT would have been severely nonplussed about . :p

After the install, you need to need to make sure that booting from a USB port has higher priority than your internal drive, that way as long as the USB drive is plugged in, it will just boot to Mandriva.

If it's a laptop, make sure you don't do what I kept doing: forget the little USB drive was hanging out of the back, stand up and have it fall to the floor! :D Am so glad to have my own Linux laptop now!